


In the Ring

by Agdistis



Category: Deadpool (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Strange Tales - Fandom, Strange Tales II, Wolverine (Comics)
Genre: But actually less whump than the relevant canon, Gen, I don't think he's feeling any one(1) thing about Logan, Logan thirst happened on accident, M/M, Sadposting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 08:11:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20904452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agdistis/pseuds/Agdistis
Summary: Meeting the famed Wolverine was devastating: he was real.





	In the Ring

“That Wolverine, though, he was _born_ with an advantage. Destined to be a crowd-pleaser. Can’t take your eyes off the man.”

Born with it. _Better_. Dad said that a lot. He was right.

Meeting the famed Wolverine was devastating: he was _real_. Other Immortals Xtreme fighters slapped his shoulders and called him _Logan_ while he chuckled awkwardly, trying and failing to disguise how uninterested he was in smalltalk. _Logan_ took too long to put his cowboy boots on. _Logan_ didn’t always brush all the crumbs out of his beard. _Logan_ had never watched Star Wars and was confused by references to it. _Logan_ still thought that no one could tell he was just a masochist, fighting to the point of evisceration and broken sobs just to feel alive for a few hours before returning to the claustrophobia of a dim apartment, the monotonous whirring of its fan, a broken armchair, and piles of beer.

Logan was a man, not a legend. Therein lay the problem.

He was a man and he was _better_, he was a man and he was _stronger_, he was a man and he was _handsome_, he was a man and he had a mind of his own. It _was_ possible to exist in this world and misunderstand jokes and trip in front of a crowd and lie and break and still be loved that much. Knowing that was a real stomach-twister.

Outside of the ring, when all Wade had going for him were his knobby nose and his recessed chin and his misshapen cheekbones and his raspy voice and his stupid tennis shoes and his idiotic jokes and his complete dearth of opinions about anything, no one would ever give him a second glance. They had people like Logan to look at. His dad had people like Logan to love and lionize. And on the other side of the coin, Logan had them.

Inside of the ring, with a katana in his hand and blood on his teeth and an eye swollen shut and a punctured lung and spilled bile and nervous shaking and throaty pleads for mercy that he couldn’t hold back or even consciously consider anymore, people did look at him. They looked at his ugliness and pathetic fragility and they _cheered_. For _him_. For _Wade_. Maybe they only cheered for him to be pinned to the ground by knives through his palms, for Logan or another opponent to elicit louder screams by gouging his eyes out, for his last breath to be squeezed out of him (until he woke up, ready to bleed for them again the next day), but they cheered. The same people that threw rocks at him outside of the ring for being a mutant paid money to see him. They looked. They couldn’t look _away_. They _smiled_.

And so it was that through the confusing mixture of tears and blood, through the sensory confusion and adrenaline high, through the heavy smog of a mind quickly going unconscious, through the final moments of spasming and numbness, he always felt something like warmth in his chest, a desperate but intoxicating warmth he knew he’d return the next day to feel again.

Logan himself touched him in these moments, exposed his viscera with precision, opened him like a present, cradled his face to snap his neck. Logan gave him his full attention, his predatory and _wanting_ gaze following him anywhere he crawled. Logan was a man, you see- a real one- and he would never choose to touch Wade outside of the ring. He couldn’t be bent to anyone's whims like a story. He had a mind of his own. He was handsome. He was stronger. He was better.

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of Inktober, I'm doing "Drabbletober." This one is loosely based on a short alternate reality story in Strange Tales II, "Dear Logan" by Rafael Grampa, but there's no relevant context that isn't provided in my drabble: they're both mutants, they fight for show, and Wade's dad told him everything about Logan.


End file.
